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johnnyringo@oldschoolmags.com

© oldschoolmags.com 2024

One of the things that first drew me to BMX way back in the early 80’s, was the magazines. I still remember the first magazine I ever bought - the May 1981 issue of BMX Action with Jason Jenson on the cover. I read that issue many times from cover to cover. My close freinds who were into BMX at the time (Ray J. and Scott P.) and myself started bying magazines regularly from that time - mostly BMX Action and BMX Plus (as well as some of the Australian mags). And then later, Freestylin’. We regularly stopped by the local newsagents to see if any new issues were available. It was always very exciting when new issues were on the rack. We would debate endlessly about who the best riders / racers were. We followed the adventures of the ‘Nerd Herd’ as well as Radical Rick and the MX Mug. And we were forever being inspired and amazed by all of these incredible athletes who were continually redifining and pushing the sport in new directions. By 1988, I had a job and a girlfriend. BMX (sadly), had fallen by the wayside. When I moved out of my father’s house, I took my 1984 Skyway TA with me but left a lot of other BMX related stuff behind - which included my magazines. That was that last I saw of any of those things. For the next dozen years or so, I ocassionly thought about the the old BMX days as my TA sat (with no wheels) in the shed and then for many years in a hallway cupboard. In the early 2000’s, Ray J. and I joked about fixing up our bikes (his Patterson was in a similar state to my TA), and going riding again. That converstation stoked a fire and I started searching online to find out what had happened in the world of BMX while I had been away. During my search, I came across the site 23mag.com . They had a number of scanned magazines available for download there, but these were mostly European magazines. There was one issue of Freestylin’ and one poorly scanned BMX Plus issue. This got me thinking about how good it would be if there was an online library where you could read all of the classic issues of things like BMX Action, BMX Plus and Freestylin’. While looking for old BMX parts for my TA on eBay, I came across a few copies of BMX Action from 1982. These were issues that I had had as a kid. Although they cost more than I really wanted to spend, I bought a couple of them and decided to scan them and release them via 23mag.com. I then sold those and bought more to scan, and so on and so on. Sharing scans this way worked okay, until the file host that I was using deleted all of my uploads. I then decided that I had to build my own site so that I had control over what was available. And that was the birth of Oldschoolmags.com (around 2006). The goal for the site is to get every issue of BMX Action, Freestylin’ and GO available online as well as all of the issues of BMX Plus up to 1990. Then, any other oldschool books and magazines from that period that we can get copies of. Although the majority of the work is mine, this site is most certainly a colaberative effort. There have been many generous souls who have contributed magazines, scans or money to help get the site to where it is today. So, thank you to all that have contributed to the work so far, your help is very much appreciated. We have come a long way, but there is still a long way to go. A single magazine usually takes anywhere between 6-10 hours of work to get it online - it doesn’t just magically happen. So, please support the site if you are in a position to do so. This helps cover running costs and getting more mags and books available. “When everyone contributes, then everyone benefits”. Enjoy. Love and best wishes, Simon (A.K.A. Johnny Ringo).

If you value the work that this site makes available, then please consider supporting that work by making a contribution. If you can’t, then that’s fine. But please don’t be one of those tossers, who happily spends hundreds of dollars on some old bike part and then brags about how cool his ‘rides’ are, but won’t kick in a few dollars to support a resource that benefits the whole of the old school community as well as them. Thanks for your support.